The invention relates generally to a method of coating a surface and an article incorporating the coated surface. More particularly the invention relates to coating a surface with a doped metal-ion precursor solution and making a coated surface having a doped metal-ion compound.
Hydrophobic and super-hydrophobic surfaces are desirable in numerous applications, such as windows, DVD disks, cooking utensils, clothing, medical instruments, automotive and aircraft parts, textiles, and like applications. Typically hydrophobic surfaces have been created by changing surface chemistry or by surface texturing, or by combining both of these methods. Altering the surface chemistry of the surface in order to achieve hydrophobicity typically involves coating the surface with a low surface energy coating. However, most of such hydrophobic coatings suffer from lack of durability in their application environment with issues of poor adhesion to the surface, low mechanical robustness and lost functionality. Moreover, most of the existing techniques for altering the wetting resistance of the surface suffer from certain drawbacks, such as processes that are time consuming, difficult to control, expensive or ineffective in producing films with sufficient durability, and are usually not scalable to large surface areas. Therefore, there is a need for an inexpensive, easy, and effective means for achieving surfaces with wetting resistance.